


Hanging Around

by crankyoldman



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: F/F, ff crack battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/crankyoldman





	Hanging Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seventhe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/gifts).



"...So you got any advice, bartender?"

Quistis wasn't sure how she'd come to drink nearly this much, or how long she'd been talking to the bartender, or hell, how'd she'd even ended up in this bar. She'd been going too hard, too long, too _much_ and there was some unspoken rule that bartenders had to listen--how often did anyone actually listen to her?--as long as the patron kept buying.

And now the patient not-smile had dropped from her face, and the woman really looked tired.

"You're asking the wrong person about that."

"So you've known someone like that? Tough as hell, but so fragile that you just _worry_ because you wonder what would happen if they break?"

It really was unnerving the way the woman looked at her, completely open to receiving and completely closed off to giving. It was the kind of look that someone perfected over years and years and it _scared_ Quistis to see it from a stranger like this.

"You never want to be the person to pick up the pieces. Because they aren't yours to pick up. Because they don't know what they want; they don't know who they _are_. Maybe they'll discover it, and you have long since faded out of the picture. Maybe they won't and they will leave you for delusions. The point is; you can't invent a place for yourself, but you've ceased to exist for them."

She took Quistis's empty bottle with no sign of judgment; a perfect bartender trait. Even if the words seemed so personal, the bartender was already going through the motions of closing out, her face a mask of some kind of false optimism.

"And I've already called you a cab, if you don't have enough to get home just come back and settle your tab later."

\---

Two days after her head cleared, Quistis came back to settle her tab.

Without a cloud of liquor and self-pity, she could actually look at the woman clearly. Quistis had left with some vague image of someone kind of Rinoa-like; dark hair and eyes and probably terribly cute in a way that Quistis didn't particularly want to think about.

But that impression had been entirely wrong; the bartender was only like Rinoa in the most basic sense. This woman had spent most of her life working--maybe even fighting--for she was muscular. But she was also incredibly feminine, not just by the natural curves of her body, but of her face. Quistis wasn't sure if she was examining her because she was beautiful, or because she had no other women in her life as a real basis for comparison; magic and SeeD training had produced lithe, wispy women. This woman was _solid_ , physical, completely untouched by GFs or Sorceresses.

"So you're back. I'm glad, I was going to have to do some real pushing of certain stock to make up for all that you drank if you didn't."

If the woman had noticed Quistis's inventory of her, she didn't indicate it. Granted, considering she dressed practically, but in no way tried to hide any of her physical features, she was probably used to people examining her with various intents.

"That was not a... well I don't do that very often, if ever."

"You'd have paced yourself better if this was a regular thing." The woman smiled, and Quistis had to wonder just how many broken people she saw in a day and why she hadn't gone completely mad.  
She handed over the gil into the woman's outstretched calloused hand. "So, just so I'm not completely impolite, what's your name?"

"Tifa."

\---

Quistis, now that she knew the bar existed, had been unintentionally casing the place. It was partly the fault of her new apartment in Balamb proper; despite the fact she still worked for the Garden, she'd wanted a place away from it. And it seemed as the months passed she spent more time in the apartment than in the Garden.

Tifa's schedule was pretty regular, and without even realizing it, Quistis had memorized it. When she started her morning jog on Thursdays Tifa got her deliveries of liquor and beer. When she ignored another call from Selphie Tifa was closing up for an early weekday.

She wasn't exactly obsessed with the woman, but there were things that gnawed at her. Quistis was used to sympathetic friends' attempts at empathy, but there was something about her hazy conversation with Tifa that indicated something even beyond empathy. _Experience_. Obviously a bad experience, at that.

And Quistis was trying to sort through the warning, and coming up blank. Was she supposed to simply not care anymore? All Quistis ever wanted to do was to _fix_ things, and maybe even people. Was it a fool’s errand?

\---

It was Tifa that made the next move.

“You know, bartenders don’t mind when someone buys them a drink for a change.”

Quistis had been sitting out on a bench on the street near enough to the bar to see the comings and goings, but she thought not near enough to be noticeable. But then, Tifa was proving to be a strangely observant type of person.

“You must think I’m a creep.”

“I deal with a lot of creeps in any given day and you’re pretty low on the creep scale.”

Quistis wasn’t entirely used to friends that were older than her. And experiences aside, Tifa was most certainly older. It put her in a position she wasn’t used to, and maybe that’s why she didn’t hesitate.

“What kinds of bars do bartenders frequent?”

Her real smile wasn’t nearly as broad as her fake one, almost an ironic quirk of the lips. “We don’t.”

\---

Quistis had always avoided such cheesily tourist places like the boardwalk while she was a SeeD and an instructor, but now that she was on a sort of sabbatical (at least that’s what she’d called it when Selphie called again, and she admitted that she wasn’t ready to go back to Garden for at least another month) it seemed somewhat fresh. Tifa had selected the cheapest beer and the most expensive hot dog she could get and they walked in silence since it was getting a bit late for the screaming children to be playing carnival-type games.

They couldn’t quite hear the ocean.

Quistis couldn’t help but wonder if she should extend a hand to hers, walk in the comfortable region between acquaintance-friendship-something that she felt. Then again, Quistis was never sure what was a date and what was a cry for help anymore.

“I wasn’t judging you, you know, Quistis.”

And they were back to that again. Quistis was just starting to try and think of a way to relate to Tifa that wasn’t drunken confessions and strangely on-point advice. But then she’d always been the first to take on professional confrontations and not personal ones.

“It doesn’t really matter.”

“It does. This isn’t something that you wish away. You make your own family sure, but sometimes they let you down.”

It occurred to Quistis that while Tifa had it together, it was something that was exhausting her. And if she went with her normal reaction--try to fix it, try to protect her, try try try--it would put an axe to _whatever_ it was that they had going on.

“Typically you’re supposed to be dating for a while before you meet the family.”

It shocked her, to just go ahead and _say_ something like that, but she didn’t want to enable. Or disable. And Tifa was frankly too interesting and elicited _reactions_ when they were in proximity to each other that she didn’t want her as a therapist. She waited on the inevitable rejection, for people only ever seemed to want things _from_ her.

Tifa’s arms were quite strong, Quistis almost stomped her instep in self defense when Tifa pulled her firmly by her belt towards her. The vulnerability--which Quistis had to admit was something that drew her to anyone really--was still there, but the strength was a pleasant change especially coming from someone that was looking at her, not through or beyond her like often happened.

“Did you know I just have this _thing_ about blondes?”

Quistis was so glad she’d made out with Selphie and Irvine at the big celebration at the end of the Sorceress War because she would have been completely fumbly as compared to how Tifa handled her tongue and knew precisely where to put her hands...

She was so glad she could afford a place close to the beach.

\---

“Quistis? Oh good, you’re back. I was worried--”

“That I quit? No, I just needed some time off. I told you that, Selphie.”

“You get some rest?”

“Not really.”

Moving out of Garden was the best decision she could have made, despite the commute. Selphie was giving her a look like she saw something amiss and was afraid to point it out. Quistis looked up at the clock; twenty minutes to five.

“I’ll be fine, Selphie. It’s almost five, and I want to get out of here on time, ok?”

Once Selphie was out of the room--a bewildered expression on her face--she flipped open her phone and scrolled to the newest number in her addresses.

“Hey Tifa. How about I just cook tonight instead? Looks like I’m getting out of here on time.”

It was a start.


End file.
